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Biracial Twins Prove That Love Has Nothing to Do With Skin Color

Meet fraternal twin sisters Kalani and Jarani. They're both adorable, but that's where the resemblance ends. No, it's not uncommon for fraternal twins to not resemble each other, but usually they look like they're the same race—whereas Kalani and Jarani, not so much. They have decidedly different complexions. Kalani is light-skinned with blue eyes and Jarani has darker skin and
brown eyes.

Born on April 23, 2016, in Quincy, Illinois, to a biracial
couple—Whitney Meyer, who is white, and Tomas Dean, who is black—the twins are
getting a lot of attention because of their different skin colors.

“When Kalani came out I
thought she (had albinism) because she was all white. I asked my doctors,
but they said, ‘Nope!’ And I kept thinking she would get color but she didn’t,”
Meyer told People.

The explanation for the difference in their skin color isn’t all
that complicated. Fraternal twins are the product of two different eggs being fertilized
by two different sperm. They share the same womb, but don’t get the exact same
combination of genes from their parents.

As for how rare it is to have biracial fraternal
twins with different coloring, it's hard to tell.

“We don’t know how often it happens because not
all cases come to our attention,” says Dr. Nancy L. Segal, psychology professor
and director of the Twin Studies Center at California State University. “I imagine it’s going to happen more frequently now that we have more
mixed marriages.”

Of course, both of the twins are adored equally by their parents
and their 7-year-old brother Talan, who is white and has a different father. Talan
reads to his sisters every night and Meyer says he “doesn’t see any difference
in the girls—he’s totally colorblind.”

Proud mother that she is, she goes on
to say, “People in this country could learn a lot from my son. He’s so
innocent, he doesn’t understand racial tensions, because to him it doesn’t
matter, as it shouldn’t matter to anyone else.”

Having these two beautiful daughters and the positive attention
they’ve received has helped Meyer heal from a devastating loss: Two years ago, her
2-year-old son Pravyn drowned in a pool while he was at daycare.